by Jeffrey Meyers

Though it was part of my self-image, I reluctantly decided to sell my 2013 silver-grey Mercedes.  It was becoming more difficult for me to get in and out of the car.  The very low front was easily scraped and damaged.  The car had to be towed after sudden, traumatic breakdowns.  The local dealer was a cursed place, inefficient and expensive, and would not sell essential parts to the cheaper and more reliable garage that was closer to my house.

A used car dealer in town, working on consignment, wanted $1,000 in advance to pay for his fees and sanitize the “vehical,” and would have to let many strange people drive my dangerously low-slung car.  Since used cars were now scarce, I optimistically decided to sell it myself online and had to set the price.  Kelley Bluebook listed a C250 Mercedes with 47,000 miles and good body condition at $13,000 to $16,250, with an average price of $15,000.

I advertised on Craig’s list and Auto Trader, starting high at $16,000 to test the market, and came down $1,000 every week.  My August 4th ad read: “MERCEDES C250, vintage year 2013.  A real beauty!  Sold privately, exceptionally clean and lovingly maintained by ancient couple.  Extremely low mileage: only 47,000.  Excellent mechanical condition, with sun roof, air conditioning and CD player.  Brand new battery and front tires.  Clear title, and registration valid until January 2022.  A rare bargain at $16,000.  Call me in Kensington at this phone number.”

I got many phone calls and emails seeking more information and asking for the Vehicle Identification Number, which would reveal (for a fee) if I’d had any accidents—minor dents or (God forbid!) crashes with inflated airbags—or had part of the car repainted.  Two people made appointments to see the car and never showed up.  I was worried about how the buyer would hand over a large amount of cash, and thought it would be safest (instead of chaining a briefcase to my wrist) to receive the money inside my bank, where I could rush to the teller and deposit it immediately.

The unusual shortage of cars in northern California made people come from 40 miles away.  Many potential buyers pretended to buy the car for their dear wife or daughter.  These tricksters were actually looking for a seller hungry for cash and willing to let the car go quickly and cheaply, hoping to “flip” it to a dealer for a quick profit.  Ignoring its good mechanical condition and extremely low mileage for an eight-year-old, they emphasized the obvious defects in the dented front and scratched rear end of my otherwise beautiful Mercedes while trying to beat down the price.

My first customer was Ron, a nice-looking man in his twenties who worked as a mechanic for a distant Mercedes dealer.  He said he had to, absolutely had to, have the car in perfect condition.  He came with a friend who worked in a body shop and knew exactly what the repair would cost.  But fussy Ron disappeared without a trace.

Next, a skinny young Asian drove up in a huge, gleaming white Mercedes, no doubt supplied by a dealer to give him gravitas.  As he sat in the car, his extremely hairy gorilla-legs got caught in the folds of the upholstery.  By then I was asking $14,000.  Testing the water, he offered $8,000, then immediately jumped to $10,000.  He claimed (though he’d be a soft target) that he had all the cash with him or could get it right away, even on a Sunday when the banks were closed.  He was clearly a sneaky tout for a covert dealer.

A few days later a well-heeled “John George” arrived from posh Mill Valley with his persuasive baggage of two teenage daughters.  Minutely scrutinizing the exterior, he pointed out a feathery, barely noticeable brush-mark on the body.  He mourned the lack of a GPS and phone, though he could easily install them.  He said that he’d spent the day looking at ten cars for sale en route to our house.  But his daughter—staring at her cell phone, not the car—wanted to love and cherish ours above all others.  John then brazenly offered $8,000—$5,000 less than our asking price!  He was a super-polite liar, but not a serious buyer.

Along came Chris, who owned a tattoo parlor in Redwood City and talked interestingly about his professional problems, especially women crying from the pain of his inky injections and changing their minds in the middle of an operation.  Like a circus performer, he was tattooed from his sandaled feet to the woman’s face on his polished bald dome.  He laughed when I said I wanted to have my name tattooed on my wife’s bottom and offered to do it real cheap.  Like the others, he hurt my increasingly sensitive feelings by pointing out the obvious defects on the body and the dented wheel rims.  He said that if I repaired it, I could make more money when selling it: “It’s a classy Mercedes and has to look good.”  After offering $11,500 on the phone, he dropped $10,000, then jumped to $11,000 in person.  By now I had descended from the original $16,000 and held out for the much lower $12,000.

My wife and I then reversed our traditional roles.  I’d been cloistered silently in my study for more than a year, was interested in the psychological maneuvers and deceptions of the would-be buyers, and was unusually patient.  My usually tolerant wife had spent a lot of time placing and revising the ads, and fielding all the phone calls and emails.  After a month of haggling, she was fed up and awkwardly urged me, in front of Chris, to accept his unworthy offer.  But my patience was rewarded, and I sold it for much more the very next day.

During all this time I had an ongoing email correspondence with Wendy Wolfgang, a nervous and neurotic holistic medical doctor who lived nearby.  She felt insecure, couldn’t make up her mind and kept imposing new conditions as soon as I agreed to the old ones.  She depended on our local mechanic Norik, who inspected and approved our car, but didn’t take his advice to buy it.  She wanted me to get a pointless tune-up, though the next service was due in only 1,000 miles.  Insisting on a risky maneuver, she wanted to drive the car herself.  Instead of responding to my objections, she merely repeated her irrational demands.  She kept saying she wanted to buy the car, but never made a definite offer.  There was no sign of a husband or son, the supposed recipient of the Mercedes, who never came by to look at it.

After a few weeks of this banter, we had an amusing exchange of emails.  On August 29 she wrote: “Hi Jeffrey, I would like to buy your car.  Here’s what I need to move forward.  It needs a tune up, per Norik.  Therefore I prefer you do that before I purchase the car.  Also, I feel it would be necessary to drive the car myself to see how it feels.  I know this might be asking too much but it seems clear that I need those things to feel confident that I’m doing the right thing.  Let me know if you’re agreeable.  Wendy Wolfgang, MD, Anthroposophic Medicine.”  I responded: “Hi Wendy, Norik didn’t mention the need for a tune-up.  You’d have to pay a lot more than our price if you want a later model C250 with only 47,000 miles.  If you’re interested in my car, let me know what you will pay. Jeffrey.”

After all the buyers’ rejections, I was delighted to be able to reject someone else.  I finally got fed up with Wendy and wrote, “It is impossible to deal with you.  I’ve run out of patience and don’t want to sell you my car.”  Mocking her pseudo-scientific search for the spirit and the soul in the diseased bodies of her deluded patients, I added, “perhaps you should take an anthroposophic approach, and consider the more spiritual parts of the car: the headlights, horn and upholstery as well as the motor.”  Shocked by my response, she apologetically replied, “Wow!  I’ve never been told that before.  If you want to sell your car to me, you’ll have to exercise some patience, which I guess you run low on.  Sorry if I’m difficult!  Wendy Wolfgang, MD.”

In the midst of these negotiations, I had a useful talk with the owner of my local Auto Body Shop.  He told me it would cost $2,500 to repair the front end, the rear end and the four wheel rims that had scraped against the curb.  I now knew the exact cost of the body repairs.  He said that since buyers can’t evaluate the engine of the car, they concentrate on the body, which everyone can see.  He thought it would be easier to sell the car if I repaired the body, but it would not be worth the investment and I would not get my money back.  He warned me to be careful about “a lot of bad people out there,” and advised me to patiently wait for the right buyer.

Then Antonio and his pretty wife Luisa, a polite and pleasant couple from Antioch (California, not Syria) turned up with two teenage daughters.  They were the serious buyers I’d been patiently waiting for.  I never learned Antonio’s work, or how he could afford to buy a second Mercedes and pay $4,000 a month tuition for his daughters in Catholic school.  Antonio didn’t criticize the car’s body; didn’t want a GPS or even ask to drive the car, though I took him for a ride.  He liked the positive aspects that I’d mentioned in the ad, and the very next day agreed to pay $13,000 ($2,000 more than the tattooed Chris had offered).  I sweetened the deal by deducting $350, half the cost of the service due in 1,000 miles.  He had to get a loan from a credit union, and asked me to send Xerox copies of the essential information—car registration, title, my driver’s license and new smog check (needed within 90 days of the sale)—so he could start the loan process.  He gave me a $650 deposit in cash before the final payment by bank check.

After we left the credit union and said goodbye with virtual hugs, I called them back, said “I have a present for you” and handed them the car keys.  I was sorry to part with my speedy and sporty luxury car.  As they drove off in my precious Mercedes and I climbed into a stolid new Subaru, I felt much older, had lost prestige and had come down in the world.

Jeffrey Meyers, FRSL, has had 33 of his 54 books translated into fourteen languages and seven alphabets, and published on six continents.  He’s recently published Thomas Mann’s Artist-Heroes (2014), Robert Lowell in Love (2015) and Resurrections: Authors, Heroes—and a Spy (2018).